Electricity Level Gimmicks (In Brief) (Patreon)

Next post, we'll be showing off the start of one of the cutscene sex animations (the full animation's completed already, but Triangulate doesn't want it shown outside of gameplay yet), just so you can see that in fact, we already have a ton of content done that isn't even in the current demo; we really have been working this whole time!

So, you might be wondering what the guy is up at the top of the post; we'll get back to him in just a second. This post will have multiple sections, dividing up each of the gimmicks and what they do; then, after all that's listed off (briefly), we'll get into what this guy's role is in the level, and how he ties into all these mechanics (as well as every other enemy and Talia herself!) To start;

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Overall intent for the Electric Level (the Sex Toy Factory):

In each level of the game, we want to change things up from the previous level and make the experience of going through the level somewhat different. So, for example, in the Fire Level, it's more of an overall "get used to the game" level, so the enemies are simple, the gimmicks are simple, so forth. In the Ice Level, we're going for more complex enemies that work together, with the environment itself being pretty benign and not that dangerous.

For the Electric Level though, we're switching things up; now, the enemies themselves are about as much of a threat as the Fire Level (with higher HP and damage and so forth to accommodate for the player having powerups by now of course), but the environment is MUCH more complex and dangerous. So, let's get into the gimmicks; this isn't EVERYTHING we have planned, but it's everything we want to reveal so far. :P

Gravity Reversal Gimmick:

First off, the main gimmick of the level! The level will have switches in certain spots that will flip gravity for EVERYTHING not locked down to the ground in the level; this means Talia, the enemies, so forth, will all flip up to the ceiling (the screen itself won't flip). This is fairly straight forward to understand, but the other stuff we have planned for the level is what works in tandem with it.

Gravity Doors Gimmick:

Throughout the level, there will be a number of doors that will be un-openable by normal means; they'll be heavy, weighted doors that are damaged heavily, and so they'll prevent a permanent roadblock to Talia.

That is, unless she flips the gravity, and that door slides right up into the ceiling! We'll also have gravity doors that come up from the ground when you reverse gravity, so you'll need to normalize gravity to make those fall back down into a slot in the ground.

Conveyor Belts Gimmick:

Also throughout the level in some areas, there will be "conveyor belts" built into the ground; these conveyor belts will have three possible speeds. One will be fast enough that Talia can run against it and continue moving forward, but it'll slow her progress considerably, another will match her speed so she'll be just running in place, and a third will be so fast that even in trying to jump while moving forward, she'll be instantly pushed back to the beginning of the belt.

Switches throughout the level will allow Talia to flip the direction of these, but not alter the speed. These affect enemies as well, of course.

Electro-Cannon Stage Gimmick/Hazard:

One of the hazards in the level is a small, highly advanced " cannon" shooting balls of dense electricity; these balls will obey physics as if they were say, a cannonball, and so if the cannon is pointed straight upwards in normal gravity, the ball will fall back down normally. But, if gravity is reversed, that same ball will shoot up... and CONTINUE going up, accelerating all the while. If the ball is shot diagonally, or horizontally... you can see where some fun stuff could happen here.

This ball will damage Talia and enemies if they're hit by it. So, you might ask, why is this listed as a "gimmick" as well as a hazard? Well...

Talia's Freeze Shot:

Remember Talia's Fire Dash? Each of the special powerups she gets after defeating a boss are a combination of the "element" of that level as well as whatever trait the boss had. The Fire Boss moves really, really fast, so you get a Fire Dash.

So, as a small spoiler, the Ice Boss utilizes time manipulation. Thus, Talia gets a freeze shot that, when it hits enemies, absolutely freezes them, not only in place, but in time, as well. This means that they ignore all physics when frozen, INCLUDING gravity itself. Why would you care about this?

Well, remember those cannonballs? Talia can freeze them and use them as platforms when frozen to access areas she couldn't originally. And this doesn't just apply to the cannonballs; this applies to *every enemy in the game* from this point onwards. (The freeze shot will have a recharge period, so you can't just spam it. We're also not going to put in any frozen-platform jumps that require insane levels of precision or anything like that, except for one of the secret endings that doesn't have sex animations.)

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And now, finally, the robot in the GIF and what it does:

So, first off, that robot isn't the 100% finished design; we'll actually be creating TWO versions of this robot!

One of them will be with a yellow color theme, and the other will be with a red color theme. In both cases, the robots are essentially electronic "keys" to open up two additional types of doors, one colored yellow, and one colored red.

For the yellow robot, it's lore is that it's essentially a "repairbot" that runs around the facility repairing it and bringing aid to any damaged robots. The way you get it to open up the yellow door is by guiding it to a button in the level that, when it lands on it, it will go into "repair mode", creating a connection between it and the button (and thus the door), opening it. (Talia can also stand on these buttons to let something through the door, but when she steps off of it, the door closes.)

Now, the AI of the yellow robot is essentially "move in one direction until I hit a wall, then turn around". So, you'll need to guide it through the map by hitting gravity switches to get it on new platforms at the right time, or to open up doors, or use a conveyor belt to launch it off of a ledge incredibly fast to jump over a chasm, so forth.

Don't think it's just a mindless bot, though; if it gets sight of Talia, it won't hesitate to run her down and have its way with her. You notice that little apparatus in what would be its "pelvic" area? Yeah, that's gonna get used extensively.

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And then we have the red robot; this robot is a security guard, and the ONLY way to get through the red doors is if it gives you permission to do so... or if you overload the connection by blowing it up. (Blowing up the yellow bot doesn't do anything for the yellow doors; you'll need to reset the room if you do this, but more on that later.)

The red bot is highly aggressive, and will chase Talia down VERY quickly if it gets vision of her, much moreso than the yellow bot. Well, Talia can just blow it away with a charge shot, easy, no problem.

Or, it would be, if the red and yellow bots were vulnerable to dying from ANYTHING Talia can shoot. Yep, that's right; they were built as a stop-gap security measure after the great battle that damaged the Fire/Ice areas, and that battle also was what damaged the Gravity Doors. So, wanting to build something in the meantime that was more up to date until they had time to repair the Gravity Doors, they made the robots.

(That said, shooting the robots does have an effect; it switches on/off the magnetic treads that they have by mildly short-circuiting them, allowing the player to choose if the robots will be or will not be affected by gravity swaps! It's kind of odd that the robots can't be destroyed by Talia's magic, though...)

So, you'll need to use the environment to destroy the red bot. Remember the Gravity Doors and the Electro-Balls? Well, now your goal is to bait the red robot right into the path of an electro-ball, smashing it to pieces, OR to lock it down to the ground by shooting it once, then flip gravity, and bam, a Gravity Door smashes down on the bot, instantly destroying it!

As an ending statement, if any of you are concerned that this level will be too complex to navigate or figure out, don't worry; not only will we be making sure things are balanced out and easy to understand while still providing a challenge, we'll be talking more about how the map structure itself will aid this in the next post!

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That's it for this post; we should have another up Sunday once all the rewards have been sent out! Thanks as always for making this game a reality, and we're busting our asses on it trying to get you demos ASAP!